Annie Groves - A Christmas Promise

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2013

Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers 2013

Cover photograph © Colin Thomas (girl); UPPA/Photoshot (background)

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 2013

The Author hereby waives all moral rights in the Work.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Publishers undertake to include the Author’s name in all copies of the work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

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HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007361557

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007464289

Version: 2017-10-09

Title Page

Copyright

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

An Interview with Sheila Riley

About Annie Groves

Also by Annie Groves

About the Publisher

‘Forty-eight hours’ embarkation leave.’

Tilly felt a thrill of excitement shoot through her veins. This was it: she had been accepted to do her war work abroad. It was what she had been hoping for since she had volunteered for overseas duties. So much had happened in the last few months that it seemed as if she had been on exercises in Wales for years. Not that she could or would discuss it with anybody, even her mother, but there was a lot going on in Whitehall right now. Her mother would have nightmares if she knew that the War Office was preparing for a second front that would end the conflict, one way or another, once and for all. Nor could she tell her mum about the nature of her foreign duties, which had just been confirmed with a tap on her shoulder by a high-ranking officer. But she had to put that to the back of her mind now.

She was so happy to be going home, especially now, and Rick said he would have leave, too.

‘Your leave starts now,’ said the chief commander. ‘Leave a contact number – but don’t bother about bringing back your bathing costumes. You may not be sent straight away.’

‘How droll,’ Janet said as they left the commander’s office. ‘Sunbathing, indeed! The beaches will be heavily fortified with barbed wire the same as here, no doubt.’

‘I know,’ said Tilly, aware that her leave would be tinged with sadness. She and the other three girls with whom she had trained, Veronica, Pru and Janet, had all volunteered for overseas duty. Every girl who offered to undertake such duties released a man for service elsewhere. The bonus was the excitement of being in some exotic foreign country for the winter instead of being stuck in foggy old London. Tilly and the other girls had been billeted close to Whitehall and her long hours meant that she rarely got home, but now, as the time to leave was drawing close, Tilly wasn’t so sure she had done the right thing, and foggy old London seemed not so bad after all. There was one consolation, however: some of the other ATS girls hadn’t been called up to go overseas for months.

‘Are you thinking of going back to Liverpool?’ Olive asked Sally as she scraped carrots for the evening meal at the brown, stone sink, before she went out to do her Women’s Voluntary Service work. Sally, her lodger, picked up another carrot and automatically began to do the same.

The two women enjoyed a catch-up in the kitchen when they got a chance, but as they both led busy lives, that hadn’t been often of late. However, Olive could see that Sally, as fidgety as a cat on a hot wall now, had something on her mind.

‘Is something the matter, Sally?’ Olive pressed her, the knife stilled in her hand as she studied the young nurse’s face. Sally looked tired, which was understandable; the whole country was tired – and sick of this war. But Olive could see in Sally’s eyes that it wasn’t just the war and the privations it brought that concerned her especially, nor was it like her to be secretive. Olive had noticed that she had talked a lot about her mother lately, much more than she had done in the past.

‘I’m fine, Olive, truly,’ Sally assured her landlady with a stiff smile, pushing her burnished auburn hair out of her eyes, but, as she dropped the scraped carrot into the bowl of water, her smile slipped and she turned to Olive. ‘You know, I haven’t been back home since I found out about … the death of Alice’s parents …?’

Olive nodded and looked at Sally for a long moment before she said, ‘Do try and see the situation from all sides, Sally.’ Her words sounded unusually abrupt, but then she continued in a milder tone: ‘He was your father, too.’ There was a moment’s silence as the two women took in the enormity of Olive’s words. It had been nearly two and a half years since Sally’s father and her one-time best friend had been killed in the Liverpool blitz back in May 1941, leaving their baby daughter an orphan, but the thought still brought a savage pain coursing through her heart, which Sally was sure would never heal.

‘I remember you wanted to give Alice up for adoption,’ Olive continued in that caring, motherly tone all the girls under her roof had come to know and love. It was true that Sally had wanted nothing to do with her half-sister, seeing her only as a reminder of the bitter, angry resentment she felt for her one-time best friend. ‘And I also know you would have regretted that decision for the rest of your life – you couldn’t give part of yourself away …’